


Rat Bastard

by KLStarre



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series), Dimension 20: The Unsleeping City, The Unsleeping City
Genre: Canon Compliant, Conversations, During Canon, Gen, Happy Ending, Liz Herrera, Post-Canon, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-01-29 01:10:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21401689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KLStarre/pseuds/KLStarre
Summary: A study of Kugrash's relationships with the rest of the Dream Team, and how he left the world a better place than he found it.
Relationships: Bruce "Kugrash" Kugrich & Kingston Brown, Bruce "Kugrash" Kugrich & Misty Moore | Rowan Berry, Bruce "Kugrash" Kugrich & Pete the Plug, Bruce "Kugrash" Kugrich & Ricky Matsui, Bruce "Kugrash" Kugrich & Sofia Lee
Comments: 40
Kudos: 160





	1. Vox Populi

“Bruce, huh?” Kingston asked, after the rest of the group had left and it was just him and Kugrash and Pete in his apartment. Pete had retreated to his room, maybe for once reading the room and seeing that this was a conversation for which he didn’t need to be around. Kugrash had places to go, of course, but it was hard to return to the tunnels after talking about who he had once been for the first time in years. Decades, even.

“Not anymore,” he said. “You got anything to drink?”

Kingston got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen and Kugrash followed him, claws clicking against Kingston’s tile floors. They’d been friends for a long time, the two of them, but friends from a distance, mostly, not heart-to-heart at one a.m. friends. Kugrash got the feeling that since Liz had left, Kingston didn’t have any friends like that.

Of course, Kugrash didn’t either.

“Whiskey good?” Kingston asked, opening a cabinet and pulling out a dust-covered bottle.

“Yeah,” Kugrash responded, and clambered up onto the counter as Kingston poured them both glasses. For once, Kingston didn’t offer even cursory complaint about Kugrash’s dirt, and Kugrash was grateful for it.

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Kingston asked, when it became clear Kugrash wasn’t going to offer further information of his own accord.

Kugrash looked down at his drink, at the way the light refracted through it, and swirled it around before tossing it back. It burned, but he barely noticed. “No point, was there?” he asked, and he was almost telling the truth.

“I’m good with curses, I could have –”

“Would you have wanted to?” It wasn’t a fair question. Kingston cared for everyone. But Kugrash had known him long enough to know that there were times when he didn’t want to, that there were times when he wasn’t sure everyone deserved it. That was the magic of him, that he did it anyway.

“That’s not the point,” Kingston responded, immediately, and despite everything, Kugrash grinned. Kingston was what Kugrash tried to be, day after day.

“It doesn’t matter, anyway. Doubt you could do anything about it. And I’m better for this city as a rat.” He’d always been a rat, of course. At least now he was doing something with it.

Kingston didn’t argue; it was irrefutable. Instead he took a sip of his own whiskey and grimaced slightly. And then – “Doesn’t it get lonely?” There was something in Kingston’s voice that sounded a little bit desperate, a little bit not just about Kugrash’s answer.

“Not any lonelier than being a man.” Kugrash finished his drink and held his glass out for a refill. After Kingston had poured it, he said, “You should know that better than fuckin’ anyone, right?” Kingston Brown from uptown knew everyone, and everyone knew him. He was fifty-five years old and he had lived in the city for all his life. His family lived in the same building as him, he saved lives every day, and now he’d got Pete to take care of. Nobody in their right mind would think he was lonely. But he was, in the same way that Kugrash was, alone in the subway tunnels every night.

“That’s not the point,” Kingston repeated.

“You sure? You’re the one who asked.” Maybe there was a part of Kugrash that was still the selfish piece of shit he’d used to be, because he was glad they weren’t talking about him anymore, just as glad as he was for the companionship. It was nice to be talking about something, even if it wasn’t exactly what either of them wanted to be talking about.

“About _you._ I’m good. My family’s right here, I’ve got all of New York. I’m good.”

“You don’t have all of New York, all of New York has you. Take it from the most selfish rat bastard around: sometimes you gotta do shit for yourself.”

Kingston sighed, shook his head, drank his whiskey. “I’ve been used to this for a long time, Kugrash.”

“People change.”

“We’re too old for that, rat-man. Too old by far.” Kugrash couldn’t help but laugh at that. Somehow, being called rat-man by Kingston felt like a term of respect.

“Fill me up,” he said, tossing back his whiskey once more.

“There’s no way you’re not already drunk,” Kingston said, looking all of Kugrash’s two feet up and down, a nurse at all times.

“Who gives a shit?”

That got a laugh from Kingston, and he passed Kugrash the bottle to pour his own glass.

They stayed like that, laughing and reminiscing, until the sun rose. And then, when Pete emerged and stumbled into the kitchen, they didn’t say anything, but they exchanged a glance before Kingston left for the hospital and Kugrash left to fulfill his morning responsibilities.

For a night, they’d both gotten to feel a little less alone.

∞

It’s a Sunday morning, and Kingston and Liz are going for their weekly walk in the park, Bruce (the dog) running along beside them, not needing a leash. Kingston takes a picture of Bruce with the hand that isn’t entwined with Liz’s and sends it to the groupchat, along with the first gif that pops up as an option.

“Beautiful day,” he says, carefully not making eye contact with Liz, and it is.

She squeezes his hand. “Always did have a knack for the obvious.”

Before he can think himself out of it, Kingston leans in and kisses her. He can’t stop himself from smiling against her as she kisses him back. They don’t separate until Bruce starts barking, excited by a pigeon that seems familiar, and laugh together as they chase after him, feeling young.

Kingston Brown has not been lonely in months.


	2. Queen of New York

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Misty Moore and Kugrash have more in common than anyone else might have thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a brief but relatively graphic description of something with the closest real world equivalent being intense dysphoria.

Kugrash didn’t trust Misty Moore, not exactly. But they had an understanding, as two creatures both fully of New York and also, a little bit, of something else. And he knew she could keep a secret, because she had kept her own for lifetime after lifetime.

Sometimes, when the tunnels were too damp and he’d done all he could for the night and wanted to remember what he had given up, he’d come visit her in her penthouse apartment. She never seemed ecstatic to see him, but she never rejected his presence, either, and now they stood out on the balcony together. She had a glass of champagne in her hand, because she nearly always had a glass of champagne in her hand, and he had nothing, because he found it best to be sharp when dealing with Misty. He wasn’t sure she’d noticed. (She had).

A snowflake drifted down from the sky. There had been very little snow for this time of year, and Kugrash, for one, was grateful for it. Less snow meant fewer people in danger.

“Happy New Year,” Misty said, reaching out and catching the snowflake in her champagne glass, watching it settle briefly on top of the liquid and then melt into it. Misty had an aura of warmth to her that reached down into your bones.

“Same to you.”

“Don’t you have work to do?” she asked, taking a sip of the snow-champagne and smiling to herself.

“The work comes in about three hours, when the alcohol catches up to people and they try to sleep in sewers that have already been claimed. You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Kugrash was lying, a little bit; there was always work to be done. But he had checked in on Wally today, and fought the urge to see what David was doing for New Year’s, and the cross of being alone felt like too much to bear.

“Always the same, always busy. That’s my Kugrash.” Kugrash couldn’t tell if Misty was being sarcastic or not.

“Another year gone,” he responded, instead of trying to figure out what game she was playing.

“Another year gone.” Misty raised her champagne to him as if to clink it against his glass, and then remembered that he didn’t have one and turned it into an expansive wave at the city around them.

“How much longer does Misty Moore have in her?” As far as Kugrash was aware, he was the only mortal being to know for a fact that Misty had been many people before he was born and would be even more after he died. People tended to tell him things. He was only a rat, after all; what could be the harm?

“Maybe a few years, maybe days. It’s always exciting towards the end.” Another snowflake spiraled down, landed perfectly atop her head. Everything was a performance, with Misty.

“How do you get used to it?”

“To what?”

“Changing. Being something else.” Kugrash was aware he was being intense, aware he had broken the character that Misty had known him as for decades, but he didn’t much care. He still woke up in the tunnels some mornings with the feeling that he was four feet taller than he was. He still approached people on the street sometimes, people who he’d used to know, and was surprised when they were disgusted. He didn’t hate being a rat. Everyone was better off this way. But Jesus fucking Christ did he wish there was a way to come to terms with the shiver of disgust he felt every once in a while, when his tail brushed against him in a way he wasn’t expecting.

Jesus fucking _Christ _did he wish he didn’t still get the urge to saw that same tail off with his claws and then rip the claws out one by one.

“It’s what I _am_, darling. I couldn’t be anything else.” She must have noticed the slightly feral look in his eyes, because she continued. “It’s like your Wild Shape, but young, and beautiful.”

“It’s not like Wild Shape.” Kugrash’s voice was cold, cut right through Misty’s warmth. It didn’t sound like him at all.

“Oh?” Misty asked, placing her champagne on the bannister and turning to face Kugrash. “And how would you know that?”

It was taking all of Kugrash’s willpower not to reach out and push Misty’s champagne glass, send it plummeting to the ground below. _I wasn’t always a rat_, he imagined himself saying, but couldn’t get the words out. “Wild Shape isn’t permanent,” he said instead, which was true. Wild Shape was fun, sometimes, because he knew he had the choice. It wasn’t the same.

“Nothing is permanent.” She laughed: that old, capricious laugh that the whole world was in love with.

He supposed it was true. It had been ridiculous to even ask.

“Well,” he said, disappointed but doing his best not to show it. “I’d better be going.” There wouldn’t be anything for him to do for at least another hour, but it suddenly seemed intolerable to remain here with Misty.

“And leave me alone? Darling, you couldn’t.”

“You could come with me, you know. Do some fuckin’ good for once.”

For a second she actually looked like she considered it, which was more than he’d expected.

“I’ve always been perfectly happy doing good in my way, Kugrash; you do it in yours.”

“Nothing is permanent,” he responded, a little bit vicious, a little bit more rat than man, and then turned and left. She didn’t deserve it; she was just being herself. It wasn’t her fault that ‘herself’ was someone living the best parts of both of Kugrash’s lives, with none of the pain.

∞

Whenever Rowan Berry looks at her beautiful, young, new body in the mirror, she thinks about that conversation with Kugrash on the New Year’s before everything went to hell. She thinks about what she now knows he must have been asking how to get used to, and she thinks about him echoing back to her, ‘nothing is permanent’.

Rowan Berry is never going to be good like Kugrash was good. The Fae aren’t like that, and she, especially, isn’t like that. She gives back to the world through performing, through bringing joy to people when they need it most. She thinks Kugrash never understood that, really, but that’s okay. She doesn’t need anyone to understand it. Nevertheless, when Ricky quits at the fire station to start doing homeless outreach, she feels a little pang of mourning for the rat who had known her secret and kept it.

“Alright, you got me, you old bastard,” she says as she steps outside into the sun. She doesn’t really know how the bagel works, if he can hear when they speak to him, but she imagines him watching as she walks down the street to where Ricky’s doing the real work, as she runs a workshop because art is what’s kept her alive all these millennia, and maybe it will help other people, too.

Ricky smiles at her as he watches, and she smiles back. Kugrash is with them, because they remember him. And if Rowan remembers someone then, eventually, so will everyone else.


	3. Questing Blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a long time! It turns out Ricky is...hard. But I am back and I am still absolutely planning on finishing this; thank you all for your patience.

“You should come to the station sometime,” Ricky said, looking down at Kugrash like this was a perfectly normal thing to say, his hand resting casually on the head of his axe. Kugrash had only met him a couple weeks ago – Esther’d said he’d broken through the Umbral Arcana with no warning and had somehow wandered over to them. He didn’t seem too overwhelmed, really, which was a lot to process. Most people seemed a little more shell-shocked after having their whole world turned upside down.

“I should…what?” Kugrash hadn’t really been paying much attention; Ricky didn’t tend to say a lot worth hearing, from his limited experience. He wouldn’t even be talking to him if he hadn’t been heading over to the Clinton Hill Chantry at the same time that Ricky seemed to have been leaving.

“Come down to the station! You seem lonely, and the boys would love to meet you.”

Kugrash was a rat-man who lived in the subway tunnels of New York City. He had heard, and seen, a lot of strange things. But this was a _lot _to process. “The boys…would love to meet me? Who are the boys?”

“The Johns! They love meeting new people.” Ricky was smiling with the world’s most bewildering naivete.

“Ricky, I’m a rat.” Kugrash had thought it was obvious, but it couldn’t hurt to mention.

Ricky looked at him. Kugrash looked back. They stood there for a couple seconds in silence.

“Ricky, how would…the boys respond to you bringing a giant rat ‘down to the station’?”

Ricky continued to look at him. “Is that a problem?”

Kugrash sighed, defeated. “Alright, Ricky. I’ll come by sometime.”

Ricky grinned a beautiful grin and flashed him a thumbs up. “Hell yeah, dude. I gotta run, but seriously, anytime.”

Kugrash stood on the street corner and watched Ricky jog off. And then he shrugged and entered the building. Esther and Alejandro knew what they were doing, he figured. Just because it seemed like Ricky was the most naïve, confusing motherfucker on the planet didn’t mean he wasn’t helpful in some way. And he was clearly a good guy, was the thing, but it wasn’t like Kugrash could or would actually go hang out at a normal, nonmagical, human fire station. It crossed his mind, just for a split second, that Ricky _did _know that, and was hiding something, some kind of intentional motivation to…be friends, or something, but he banished it quickly. The idea of Ricky Matsui having any sort of intentional inner machinations was too much to process. 

Kugrash had his meeting. He talked to normal, smart people about less-than-normal things, and by the time he was able to leave, he stepped outside into a setting sun. It would be nighttime, soon, and he should get blankets out for the people he could get blankets out for. It was fucking cold, and it was November in New York City so that shouldn’t be surprising, but it was colder than it _usually _was, which did not bode well for the coming months when it would, presumably, be even colder.

“Goddammit,” Kugrash muttered to himself, and began to make his rounds. He had stashes of blankets hidden across the city; had found, after years of trial and error, that keeping what he had acquired in one place did not work when he had as many people to help as he did. The stashes were made up of what he could find in places that humans couldn’t fit – subway tunnels, hidden grates – and what he could steal from people and stores who simply did not need them. He gave away what he could. Was no point in him hanging onto things.

Slowly, as the darkness grew and the sun drifted downwards, Kugrash made his way across as much of the city as he could. He knew everybody by name, or at least everybody who had been out yesterday – every day there were more, more people hollowed out by the hunger of the city. And every day there were fewer, too. Kugrash tried not to think about the people for whom he hadn’t been able to do enough, but there were plenty.

The stars began to come out, not that they were visible. Just one every once in a while, through the light pollution and the smog, and it was never quite possible to tell if it was a star or an airplane coming into view. It was cold. Fucking goddammit, it was cold as shit. Kugrash was a rat, he had fur, he shouldn’t be shivering. He couldn’t even –

_Shit_. He’d clambered up the fire escape to the abandoned building where he kept some blankets (and clothes, when he could find them), and the box was empty. Some motherfucker had come and stolen everything he’d collected, and he could hope that it was someone with good intentions, someone who’d distribute things like he did, but Kugrash was old and had the mind of a ruthless fucking capitalist, and he knew damn well that it was much more likely that whoever had done it was planning on selling the shit, milking whoever they could for the few dollars they had. It was – he couldn’t _blame _the people who did shit like that. They were looking out for themselves, same as everyone else.

But Kugrash hung from the fire escape, a gust of wind whipping through his fur and chilling him to the bone, and allowed himself a second’s pause to be angry. To remember when he didn’t give a shit about any of this and to be pissed off that he had fucked up and was stuck here being a rat and not even able to help the people he had promised himself he would help. Just a second. Just a pause.

And then he climbed down the fire escape, continued down the block, and found himself in front of a fire station. He _knew _it was there. He knew every square foot of New York and he knew where Ricky Matsui’s fire station was, and even if he didn’t, it would be impossible to miss. But somehow he…hadn’t processed.

There was – he took a step closer to try and get a clearer look, and there seemed to be, what? A box? A cardboard box by the front door? It was difficult to get a close look through the flowing masses of people, so he gave it a few minutes, waited for an opportunity, and then sprinted across the street, weaving between stopped traffic. He only heard one scream, which honestly might not even have been in response to a giant rat scurrying across the street.

The box, when he walked up to it, had a note on it. The handwriting was painstakingly neat, in perfectly even capitals. It said:

_Kugrash, _

_ You didn’t seem to want to hang out, and that’s totally cool. But Esther mentioned you spent a lot of time helping people out and would probably pass by this way, and so I got some stuff together for you. I hope it’s helpful. I’d love to have you chill inside, too, but it’s super fine if you don’t want to._

_ From,_

_ Ricky_

The kid had signed the note, as if it wouldn’t be immediately obvious to Kugrash who it was from. Kugrash was not the crying type. Never had been. But he did have to take a breath as he folded the letter back up and slipped it into its envelope. The second of anger he’d allowed himself was overwhelmed by something else. By Ricky choosing over and over again to help people without even having to be turned into a rat first.

People knew what Kugrash did, the people who knew him and who knew the real New York. But none of them had ever, Kugrash was realizing, tried to help.

He opened the box. It was filled with blankets, it seemed like, and sweatshirts that Kugrash couldn’t even begin to imagine where they’d come from. And sitting on top of it all, with a sticky note that said in the same careful capitals _For Kugrash,_ was a vitamin shake.

∞

Ricky Matsui wakes up, lies in bed for exactly five minutes, drinks his protein shake, works out, showers, gets dressed, and checks his phone. There’s a text from Esther, several notifications from Instagram, and a few emails. He nods to himself, replies to Esther, marks the emails for later, and puts his phone in his pocket, turning to leave the apartment. It’s going to be a good day. Most days are good days, of course, but he and Esther are going out tonight, and there’s important work to be done, and none of the Johns are working so they’re coming to visit and help out.

Ricky glances behind him as he opens the door, and there is a piece of paper, on the counter, that had not been there before. “Huh,” he says to himself, walking over to it. The side facing up is blank, so he flips it over and is faced with chicken-scratch, nearly illegible.

_Thank you for doing the work_, it says, and then, smudged so as to render all but the first letter borderline indecipherable, _Kugrash_.

Ricky smiles, and pockets it. “Anytime, Kugrash,” he says out loud, unsure if being one with the universe means Kugrash can read his mind or not. “Anytime.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hoping to update around once a week! Comments are always deeply appreciated <3


End file.
